Yamaha Dave

Hypothetically, if you were to start your own corporate charter how would you do it? This is not something I have thought about doing seriously, but maybe 10-20 years from now. Basically I know on a personal basis the President of a VERY large technology company. What company it is for is not important. Anyways we have a close work relationship and it baffles me how a company this big has no corporate jet and still uses Coach economy class tickets through Continental to get where they are going. They fly 8-10 people all over the country on a daily basis.

So that being said, if you were to pitch this idea of letting you fly them around, give them the benefits, less hassle, saves time by less downtime waiting for flights, convience of not having to go through the whole check-in process etc etc. What aircraft would you use? Would you lease it yourself? Have them lease it? Would they pay you for the hour? How would you work out the fuel and maintenance?



I wouldn't even know where to begin. I need some ideas please.

rickair7777

You have a lot of research to do.

There are three routes I could think of...

- Get a Part 135 certificate. This would allow you to operate on-demand charter to the public. It would also be a PITA and require a lot of workink knowledge of 135 regs and operations. It would be best if you first worked at a 135 operation (preferably in management) to learn the ropes.

- Get a single-pilot 135 cert. This is much easier and is basically a simplified process for one-man charter operations. The limitation is that I think you can't hire other pilots, or use an airplane requiring more than one pilot.

- Most charter operations involve "holding out to the public" and "common carriage" and require a 135 certificate. Your situation might however be an unusual case called "private carriage". It's possible that if you work only for one guy and did not fall into that relationship via advertising or "holding out to the public" that you could conduct such an operation without a 135 cert (although there are parts of 91 which would apply to larger aircraft and for-hire ops). The fact that you had the relationship with this guy before you started the operation leads me to think you could do this. But check with an aviation lawyer first.

joepilot

It sounds to me more like you would want them to start their own corporate flight department with you as chief pilot. This could remain strictly Part 91.

Joe

BoilerUP

Yup...and that's the way you would want it.

There are many reasons why a company does or doesn't have a business airplane; the biggest reasons many don't is that they simply have never experienced the upsides of it or are afraid of the financial cost of it.

The biggest "selling point" for an airplane is that while it costs more, you're buying TIME. This argument holds more weight if you're based in a small/medium sized city and the company needs to travel to locations not conveniently accessible by airlines for whatever reason (connections, price, convenience of flights, etc).

Priority #1 would be finding out what their mission profile is. Where do they go the most and how many people go each time. Flesh out the needs vs. the wants. DO NOT have them buy more airplane than they need; doing this has financially broken many operators in the past.

When it comes to selecting airplanes, you must look at both acquisition cost AND direct operating cost. Depending on the mission, you might be better served with an airplane that costs more to buy but is cheaper to operate (or vice versa). Conklin de Decker is a great source for this information, as is Business & Commercial Aviation magazine. Just for giggles, you can take a look at popular airplanes and their stats using this website: http://www.jetsearch.com/index.php/c...rms/Itemid,97/

rickair7777

I would agree with this...a lot easier on you, plus no personal financial risk.

Outlaw2097

The plane can always be rented...

Convairator

Tell them to use NetJets, and charge them $100 dollars for telling them that. Then you can retire!